Yesterday and today

Yesterday's -

Adrenaline rush: filling up a shopping cart at Trader Joe's, getting to the checkout, reaching in my pocket for the wallet-substitute with all the plastic in it... and it not being there. Went out to the car, to double-check the bag, but no dice. I went back in and got under $15 of groceries (what I had in cash), and drove home carefully (knowing now that I had no license), and frantically looked where I put it during Shabbat. No dice. Checked the rain coat I wore Sunday... ah, there it is! Foolishly didn't put it back in the right place. Much calmer :-)

Accomplishment: getting the apartment cleaned up. Well, except for my bedroom, which looks worse than ever. But the rest of the apartment is in pretty good shape, a lot of things away that haven't been in a while, so a touch less clutter in certain areas (possibly perceivable only by me :-), enough to give a sense of getting ahead just a bit, rather than just trying to keep up.

New food: Trader Joe's "pinjur," described as a "traditional Macedonian recipe made with roasted peppers & eggplant." It's pretty good, lightly spicy, made out of ingredients I recognize (and it's vegan).

Phrases: lunar rainbow, and solar ear plugs.


Today's -

Celebration: According to Google's logo, it is Michaelangelo's birthday today. Happy birthday!

Good news: a long-distance friend is going to be visiting soon :-)

Today's spam: Dental coverage

Plan Highlights (only my favorites included):

• Cosmetic dentistry such as bleaching, bonding and implants are included.
  [Really, this sounds improbable.]
  
• No Limitations, Deductibles or Claim Form s are ever needed.
  [Insurance without any forms or deductibles? What do they think I'm smoking?]
  
• 100% risk free money back guarantee!
  [Risk free dentistry. Nice.]
  
• Over 18.000 Participating Dentist Nation Wide
  [Aha! I knew there had to be a catch somewhere. I wonder if my state has one of these elusive dentists. Do they have any fractional ones that add up to a whole one?]

A visit to the library gnomes

I stayed after hours at the library last night, to meet the gnomes. I first started suspecting they were there when I found a tiny penciled message on one of the slips of paper out for people to scribble call numbers on. The writing was so small, I couldn't imagine how someone wrote it, especially not with the golf pencils they have out next to the computers.

Once I started paying attention, though, there were lots of little signs, things hidden behind books, little crannies with well-worn paths...

It took some time, but I finally arranged a meeting. It turns out that the library is full of them, different tribes in different subject areas, distinguished by the Dewey Decimal system. I thought those in the travel section would be most cosmopolitan, so I made my appointment with them. Turns out, the travel tribe has souvenirs from the rest of the library, and a tendency to tell stories of their adventures in the long hours after closing.

I made myself as comfortable as I could on a library stepstool. Then the stories began. I heard stories of intrepid travel, over to Self-help (who are the most arrogant gnomes, thinking themselves more improved than anyone else), to Cookbooks (they bemoan the lack of fresh ingredients, yet manage to produce gourmet meals), even into the disorganized frontier regions of Fiction, and the dangerous Mystery section, where many scouts had been killed.

I heard of the concern that the library might change to the Library of Congress classification system, and the fears of tribal chaos that could ensue: most tribes knew only their nearest neighbors. There were some who were still afraid that computers would replace all the books, but they were in the minority. And there had been a recent spate of book-dust-triggered asthma, which no one had yet devised a treatment. Not an easy life.

Too soon, it began to be light, time for me to go.